On assignment

Staff writer Gretel C. Kovach, who covers military affairs, and photographer Nelvin C. Cepeda are embedded this summer with Camp Pendleton-based Marines in Helmand province, Afghanistan. Amid a U.S. drawdown in that country, troops from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are serving in that stronghold of the Taliban.

The medical supplies are being packed away and most of the vehicle parts in the maintenance yard are already gone, but the mission continues for Marines and sailors stationed in one of the most violent areas of the war zone.

This military outpost along a contested strip of battle space in Helmand province is slated for demilitarization — one of about 220 Marine positions out of more than 250 once located in southwestern Afghanistan set to disappear or transfer to Afghan forces by October.

The flow of patients into the busiest front line surgical suite in the country and the distribution of fuel and other supplies from this logistics hub will likely continue, however, until the last days before FOB Edinburgh ceases to exist in coming weeks. Then remaining personnel will be shuffled to a shrinking number of military positions in the province amid the drawdown of international forces in Afghanistan.

Not long after the commanding general of 1st Marine Logistics Group Forward stopped by one morning last week, two more patients arrived by medevac.

“You guys are on the cutting edge. There is no more pointier end than out here,” Brig. Gen. John Broadmeadow told Navy medical personnel from Camp Pendleton’s 1st Maintenance Battalion who staff the base’s shock trauma platoon and forward resuscitative surgical suite. “You guys have been incredibly busy here, and in the middle of all that we’re going to shake you up and throw you out into new places so you can start doing it all over again.”

After the general’s pep talk, Army helicopters unloaded two Afghan policemen with gunshot wounds. Inside the sun baked medical tent, more than two dozen people administered to the patients.

In the last month, they have treated 67 battle casualties, including Marines struck by roadside bombs and a mass casualty of 11 people injured by a suicide bomber in nearby Musa Qala.

About half as many Marines are deployed in southwestern Afghanistan from the high of almost 20,000 last year. About 7,000 are expected to remain by the president’s October deadline to reduce U.S. end-strength in Afghanistan to 68,000.

The rapid drawdown is reconfiguring the battle space and forcing commanders to juggle competing priorities with diminished resources. For instance, all across the war zone, former U.S. military bases are being stripped by Marine engineers and scraped clean, even as they build new bases for special operations forces and the realignment of conventional coalition and Afghan forces.

“Other than fresh dirt,” no trace will remain after demilitarization, said Col. Edmund Bowen, the regional command’s point man for base closures. “After a couple of dust storms, you would never know that we were there.”

Under the current NATO timeline, coalition military operations are expected to continue in Afghanistan through 2014 at least. In the interim, the top priority for logistics Marines is sustaining remaining combat forces.

“There’s not a rush for the exits by any stretch of the imagination. We are being very, very deliberate,” Broadmeadow said. “It’s a continual balance and assessment to make sure that I can meet that first priority — to provide that tactical logistics support.”

The delivery of food, fuel, water, ammunition, mail and everything else ground forces need will become more challenging as the number of military positions dwindles, he added.

“Where we used to be able to go to a central hub and then everything else was fairly close to those Marines we needed to support, we now are going to have Marines spread out over a wider part of the battle space,” Broadmeadow said.

A task force of more than 500 Marine volunteers was dispatched to Helmand province in May to clean, sort and pack equipment and vehicles heading back to home installations. About 2,500 soldiers are assigned to the same job in other provinces.

Upward of 30 percent of all the equipment and vehicles the Marine Corps owns is in Afghanistan, much of it having come straight from Iraq.

At Camp Leatherneck, headquarters for Marine and NATO operations in southwestern Afghanistan, armored vehicles waiting to be flown out of the war zone or trucked across the northern border are parked in neat rows.

By the fall, the Marines will have sent about 4,500 vehicles and other large items home, as well as about 33,000 radios, weapons and other gear. At one sort lot, Marines work day and night to pack about 30 pallets a day for shipment, a number expected to double this summer when the drawdown quickens.

Since November, the lot has sent at least 805 pallets and 502 shipping containers of gear worth more than $158 million out of the country, according to a running tally posted near the gate.

“The end-to-end accountability is very important to us. It’s not glamorous, but if we find a piece of gear that is not on the records, that reduces the demand signal to our headquarters. That’s one less thing we’ve got to buy,” said Col. Jim Clark, commanding officer of the Marine task force.

Lance Cpl. Alexander Montalvo, 21, a Camp Pendleton Marine from Fort Lauderdale, volunteered for the job so he could deploy for the first time.

“By September they’re going to try to send most units back home,” he said as he ratcheted a piece of vehicle armor. “All their gear and stuff is coming toward us. We’re trying to clean it and get it back to the States.”

Unless the item cannot be repaired or used, “we are taking it all home, nothing is staying here,” said Col. Jeff Hooks, the regional command’s logistics director.

“We have a very tight budget when we get back to Camp Pendleton,” he said. “It’s a big change from what some folks remember coming out of Iraq.”

Back at FOB Edinburgh, the vehicle maintenance yard is empty. Five tents were torn down and more than $850,000 worth of parts — from tires to fuel tanks and radiators — were sent last week to Camp Leatherneck.

The fuel farm pumping some 15,000 gallons a day to power supply convoys and trucks transporting equipment back to the rear strategic base will be among the last to close. “Everything is going. I’ll be one of the last Marines out of here. Without fuel, the Marine Corps can’t roll,” said Sgt. Edwin Garcia, 33, of Dumont, N.J.

The British built the base in 2007. Now, as in Fallujah, Iraq, or Khe San, Vietnam, this is the end of the line for “FOB Eddi,” Broadmeadow reminded his Marines: “You will be able to tell people for the rest of your lives — I was the last one.”